Poll links “frequent” US gamers to libertarian political stances

Gamers show stronger support for free-market policies than non-gamers.

The June issue of Libertarian-leaning magazine Reason reinforces a bunch of bad gaming stereotypes with its cover, but at least it puts the guy in a nice suit!

This month’s issue of the libertarian political magazine Reason is dedicated to video games, and unsurprisingly, the issue’s massive spread of gaming stories all reflect a common political spin. For example, the “first out-and-proud gamer” in the House of Representatives talks about his libertarian ideas, a column decries the idea of tax breaks for game studios, and a best-of list aims its criteria at games “every Libertarian must play.”

The issue also includes one of the most pointed political surveys about self-proclaimed gamers’ political leanings in recent memory. According to two Reason-Rupe polls conducted in December 2013 and April 2014, gamers are more likely to fall in line with libertarian beliefs, even if they don’t identify as libertarians.

The random-call phone poll focused on the 16 percent of its 2,014 American respondents who self-identified as “frequent” gamers. When asked to identify their political affiliation, the gamers were more likely to call themselves independent (55 percent) versus non-gamers (41 percent), while fewer called themselves Republican (15 percent of gamers versus 26 percent of non-gamers). Both populations were relatively even about identifying as Democrat, though independent gamers were more likely to lean Democrat when pressed to pick a side. In addition, the gamers were much more likely to describe themselves as liberal than non-gamers (32 vs. 21 percent), and less likely to describe themselves as conservative (17 vs. 33 percent)

When asked how they felt about government bans on purchases and certain regulations, gamers seemed more amenable to the free-market than non-gamers. Unsurprisingly, 82 percent of gamers favored being allowed to play violent games compared to just 54 percent of non-gamers. Gamers were also more likely to support the use of Bitcoin and of 3D-printed guns, and they favored laws legalizing marijuana. In every question about whether government should intervene in specific activities or products, gamers were opposed to the idea more frequently than non-gamers by a margin of at least 13 percent.

“We were most surprised by the idea that gamers, even though they identify as liberal and progressive regardless of their age group, were against government regulations of what people could do with their own bodies and their own lives,” story co-author Scott Shackford told Ars. “Also, if gamers didn’t know what something was, like Bitcoin, they were more inclined to say that the government should allow it, whereas for non-gamers, if they didn’t know what something was, they were inclined to say the government should regulate it.”

The survey lacked questions on a number of hotbed topics, including affirmative action and gay marriage. Shackford says those topics are generally not included in the polls that Reason-Rupe conducts every quarter. “We didn’t do a poll specifically for gamers,” Shackford added, saying that the pollsters merely added on a few questions about gaming to this quarter's poll.

Gamers’ liberal leanings did come through in a few questions. When asked whether the government should subsidize alternative energy sources, 69 percent of gamers were in favor, compared to only 50 percent of non-gamers. Similarly, gamers are far more likely to believe police forces are under-regulated—63 percent of gamers feel that way compared to 44 percent of the rest of the poll respondents.

The Reason article accompanying the poll credited some of its findings to assumptions about how game players see the world: “[Gamers] may describe themselves as liberal, but they do not like government policies that control individual life choices, like what products they can purchase or consume. Video games are all about making choices, right?”

Indeed, gaming fans were more likely to support reduced government control of certain decisions, more so than the rest of the polled respondents. However, without specific questions about topics like taxation and centralized government services, the survey failed to answer how much gaming fans identify with the full gamut of potential libertarian leanings. As gaming fandom continues to consume a larger range of age groups, ethnicities, and so forth, we hope that this study's data vacuum will eventually be filled by fuller games-meets-politics studies.